What am I working on today-thread

Going to try and make a habit of updating this off and on with some info on what I've got going on.

3-20-11 Yes, on a Sunday I am working.

Just finished up an '89 5-speed that needed a full A/C rebuild, suspension adjustments, new tires and a full detail by my daughter.

Started on a 94 GTS that will be getting motor mounts/pan gasket, timing belt/water pump, new cooling fans and who knows what else in the next week.

Tuesday I have another GTS coming in for some A/C work that is a rush to get in since it will be going on our Third Coast trip this weekend.

First pics are the '89 after detail, just a couple. Second set is the GTS MM in progress. last pic is mine after the girls washed it today. You can see the newest acquisition in the back ground, early 1978.

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Sean do you work out of your home?

Yup, 90% of the time.

Do you have a lift? Man that is a lot of work with out a lift.

I've got access to a lift when I need it and that is not very often. The way I've got it set up between the porken bars and stands, the height is perfect for MM/PG jobs by myself. With a lift I find it actually harder when I'm the only one around.

The only thing I don't have here is a lift, got everything else I'd need.

I don't have one either. I use 6 ton stands on the bottom setting.
It seems to be lots of room for me to slide under on a creeper.

Sorry I should not be posting on your (what I'm doing today) thread

78...NICE Sean!! Way to go! I want a 78 in the Kermit Green with Pasha!

Yesterday did some work on a new Beetle Turbo, not a fan of those.

Moved an 89 5-speed that has been here for two months around a bit.

Today got Jims GTS in for some A/C work, should have it done and out of here tomorrow some time. Love this car.

pcar928fan;4220 wrote: 78...NICE Sean!! Way to go! I want a 78 in the Kermit Green with Pasha!

Rog has a light green one with pasha in it, that is the one my daughter talks about weekly. Which means I'll have to talk Roger out of it in the next year or so.

Did he change the seats? The one I saw had some tan seats in it, not Pasha...Would love to beat you to that one!

pcar928fan;4263 wrote: Did he change the seats? The one I saw had some tan seats in it, not Pasha...Would love to beat you to that one!

That was the Cashmere car and it's got all new leather through out. The new silver '78 has some really cool purple pasha and the green one has generic looking pasha. It will get redone. Now that I think about it, he's up to 4 '78's.

Hey sean I here there is a guy that may need some upper A-arms installed

I only want a Kermit looking '78...wanted Kermit but w/o a job that was just not going to happen... I would have bought it were I working though!

928mac;4270 wrote: Hey sean I here there is a guy that may need some upper A-arms installed

removed... then installed...

Sean....what garage tools do you have specifically for the 928s?

For example.....one of your pics shows the engine hoist

malcolm;4276 wrote: Sean....what garage tools do you have specifically for the 928s?

For example.....one of your pics shows the engine hoist

I'd say the only tools I have specifically for the 928 are the Porsche tools. Have quite a few of them but in all reality, most of them could be duplicated from Snap-on/Mac/Craftsman now days.

The engine support is perfect for motor mounts and cheap at Northern Tool or Harbor freight.

As for equipment one should have to make life easier.

10 ton press, gave mine to Brad W and picked up a 20 ton.
Blasting cabinet for refinishing parts.
Good sized sonic cleaner, heated is best.
Drill press.
30gal parts washer.
Nice, large Bench vice.
Bench grinder
multiple tool boxes and carts.
Air compressor.
Beer fridge.
TV and internet access.

All of these I had before I started working on cars for a living, kinda turned my hobby in to a livelihood.

Sean, do you need that small tweeter door speaker cover still? I found mine (still brand new and all wrapped up) that I got from Roger but didn't need (I needed the bigger one) and I just never returned it to him. Can easily drop it in the mail to you this week and you will have it by Mon/Tue of next week. Just $3 for shipping plus whatever Rog normally charges you for those things would be fine with me. That way Rog does not have to put it back on his shelf and reimburse me and you get the part you need for the same price and I get my money back.

Let me know bro!

pcar928fan;4283 wrote: Sean, do you need that small tweeter door speaker cover still? I found mine (still brand new and all wrapped up) that I got from Roger but didn't need (I needed the bigger one) and I just never returned it to him. Can easily drop it in the mail to you this week and you will have it by Mon/Tue of next week. Just $3 for shipping plus whatever Rog normally charges you for those things would be fine with me. That way Rog does not have to put it back on his shelf and reimburse me and you get the part you need for the same price and I get my money back.

Let me know bro!

I've got a couple of the smaller sets and they don't fit. I think I'm needing the larger ones. What's odd is I put in a set of GTS door panels and they came with the small ones, I ended up swapping out the speakers from my '88 and they were larger than the others. What I need to do is find some car with the large grills and see if they will even work on mine.

Shouldn't be to hard to come across I would think. I'll let ya know if anything changes, thanks James.

SeanR;4279 wrote: I'd say the only tools I have specifically for the 928 are the Porsche tools. Have quite a few of them but in all reality, most of them could be duplicated from Snap-on/Mac/Craftsman now days.

The engine support is perfect for motor mounts and cheap at Northern Tool or Harbor freight.

As for equipment one should have to make life easier.

10 ton press, gave mine to Brad W and picked up a 20 ton.
Blasting cabinet for refinishing parts.
Good sized sonic cleaner, heated is best.
Drill press.
30gal parts washer.
Nice, large Bench vice.
Bench grinder
multiple tool boxes and carts.
Air compressor.
Beer fridge.
TV and internet access.

All of these I had before I started working on cars for a living, kinda turned my hobby in to a livelihood.

thx Sean....I 'just' need the top 3 of your list to complete. I'm also working on a car lift for my quonset but want it big enough to handle my 3/4 ton chev 4x4 truck

malcolm;4286 wrote: thx Sean....I 'just' need the top 3 of your list to complete. I'm also working on a car lift for my quonset but want it big enough to handle my 3/4 ton chev 4x4 truck

Malcolm Stan and I have a tread on lifts and there are some good links in it

forums.928oc.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=622

Awesome thread Sean. Thanks for taking the time and doing this.

How long have you been doing 928 repair full time? Have you thought about buying/renting a garage for this? Do you think you'll have enough 928 business long term? I see you did a repair on a VW. Are you expanding to other Foreign cars too?

Sorry for all the questions. Just wondering.

WyattsRide;4290 wrote: Awesome thread Sean. Thanks for taking the time and doing this.

How long have you been doing 928 repair full time? Have you thought about buying/renting a garage for this? Do you think you'll have enough 928 business long term? I see you did a repair on a VW. Are you expanding to other Foreign cars too?

Sorry for all the questions. Just wondering.

As my own business I've been doing it for 5 years or so but I can say that my first 928 head gasket job was in 1985 at my fathers shop. He had his shop for 40 years and I worked with him for quite a few.

As far as renting/owning a shop, it's been in the works for a couple of years now. Saving the money for a few acres in the country and building a rather large shop and a new house on the land. Obviously with the way lending has gone the last few years, the amount of $$ required is larger than in the past. I do not want do 'rent' a place in the city limits, huge pain in the ass and much harder to actually make a living.

I've always worked on most anything European, not a fan of the American or Jap stuff. And believe it or not, the amount of 928 work in the DFW metroplex has amazed me, it just seems to get larger. In 2010, I had 77 928's alone to work on, plus quite a few Mercs/BMWs etc.

This week has just been playing catch up and finishing the cars here. One GTS is finished and should be getting sold this weekend. Have a person that is very interested in it out on the west coast. Will find out soon.



Have another GTS that came in today, Supercharged, ball of fun. Has some running issues to sort out along with tuning.



Had an unexpected visitor in on Tuesday, torque tube splines sheered in the clamping sleeve up front. Suspect the trans had something to do with that. Was acting funny, popped out of gear a few times before it quit moving. Think something broke, jammed up the gears and then the torque tube sheared. Will be pulling the tube, rear suspension and taking the gearbox apart. Lots of fun.



Overall its going to be a busy couple of weeks. Have an '89 coming in on Monday for transmission fluid lines to be rebuilt and a few other small things.
April is full up on the sched.

Gotta love it.

Need to show the good shots.

Is that red GTS the one that has been for sale for well over a year? I always liked that car!!!

pcar928fan;4374 wrote: Is that red GTS the one that has been for sale for well over a year? I always liked that car!!!

Nope, it's not been for sale publicly, he just decided last week that it might be a good idea. He has had it for quite some time.

Red one not going anywhere, was asked to do a timing belt/water pump job on it.

I find them inspirational. It also motivated me to look at your site and watch the videos: www.928docs.com/Video.aspx?ChannelId=1&MediaId=1

martinss;4378 wrote: I find them inspirational. It also motivated me to look at your site and watch the videos: www.928docs.com/Video.aspx?ChannelId=1&MediaId=1

Forgot those embarrassing things were still on there. The guy who was doing my web site is a fellow 928 owner, and stopped having any communication last year. I gotta work on that thing.

SeanR;4381 wrote: Forgot those embarrassing things were still on there. The guy who was doing my web site is a fellow 928 owner, and stopped having any communication last year. I gotta work on that thing.

I like that video

Hey I know a guy who knows something about website work and I think he has an assortment of stroker shortblock parts that need assembling....

I just watched it and I like the video as well.
You just have to add some more of them.
Stans stroker would be a cool video

Stan.Shaw@Excell.Net;4382 wrote: I like that video

Hey I know a guy who knows something about website work and I think he has an assortment of stroker shortblock parts that need assembling....

I feel a trade coming on!!!

So Sean this is ANOTHER red GTS in the D/FW area? Pretty cool! I always liked the red GTS's! I think it is probably because the red rear reflector blends in a bit better them than any other color. Whatever it is though they look AWESOME!

Stan, anything is possible

James, we keep finding more GTS's in the DFW area, did a PPI on one today for a gentleman. Have never seen this one, black on classic gray with really light colored seats. No pictures to share though. Was a pretty decent car with a huge stack of records. Needs some TLC and can tell a non-928 guy did the work on it. Hope he will be joining the crew soon.

Did an '06 Merc E320 brake job yesterday and a 996 head light fix today along with the PPI. Waiting on parts for the '80 torque tube/trans job, should have the parts for it on Tuesday and can give it back to the owner.

This is not what you want to find on a torque tube.



Pardon the finger



31 year old transmission looks really good inside.

What happened to the end of that TT? Why are the splines all...GONE?

pcar928fan;4488 wrote: What happened to the end of that TT? Why are the splines all...GONE?

My first thought was the coupling shaft was loose, but the pinch bolt was torqued nice and tight. Someone had been in there previously and I wonder if it was damaged in the past and just happened to work its self around. Customer said the car had popped out of gear a couple of times before it let loose, so we inspected the gear box to see if anything broke in there, or jammed up.

Right now, I've no idea how it happened, just getting it fixed.

I was expecting you to say it had come loose too... VERY STRANGE! I look forward to hearing how this turns out.

I almost bought that supercharged GTS. From what I've heard, Its a good thing I didn't.

Jon B.;4502 wrote: I almost bought that supercharged GTS. From what I've heard, Its a good thing I didn't.

Why? It's a damn good car. I'm replacing the stuff that was not done years ago, such as the MAF, Temp II, O2 and getting rid of these cheap plug wires.

That's all it seems to need, then some sharktuning.

I'm having a blast with it. I think the issues that it's had the last few months are due to the owner not being a wrench and too far away from a good mech. It will soon be in good hands.

Continuing on this week.

Tuesday I finished up a transmission cooling line rebuild on an '87, it also needed an odo gear replaced. That turned in to a nightmare. When pulling the needle off the shaft snapped. Figured it was going to happen sooner or later and had an extra one around for that reason. Then got it all back together only for the replacement speedo to want to burn itself out. So had to source another one from Roger. Try number three completed it. Lost $$ on that job. It happens though.



A/C rebuild on an 85 Euro yesterday and today, getting ready to fill it up with R-12. It also needed the rear cam tower gaskets replaced. Used the silicone ones from Roger also.



Have an '89 being dropped off tomorrow night for a bunch of stuff, and on Saturday have an '85us coming in for a freon top off. Then a 996 for some other bits also.

Busy week.

Great stuff Sean! I would love to pull up a chair with a beer and watch you work on Sharks all day.

Notice I said, WATCH! LOL